X-Event process

Since 2005, Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet (les gens d’Uterpan), in partnership with the Contemporary art Centre of Bretigny, develop the construction and diffusion of several danced performances – The X-Event.
























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The creations point out and question the frontiers between the two fields: performing and plastic arts.  
After the creation of X-Event 1, Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet have developed seven protocols brought together under the generic title X-Event 2. Constructed as autonomous units and utilised as individual objects, these embodied forms can enter into a duality with other venues as part of a framework or an exhibition agenda, distinct from the ordered theatre space. Determined by an expenditure of energy taken to its limits, what the performers do confronts the specific characteristics of the site and its intended use. Developing new relations with creation, the two artists develop their research towards new exhibition frameworks, new conventions, towards a new identity.

To download the file X-Event, please click >here<

X-Event 1

Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet premiered their X-Event 1 at the Faits d’Hiver festival 2005 in Paris. In a theatre rearranged by the choreographers, a raised, X-shaped space reminiscent of a Minimalist sculpture serves as a stage around which the spectators are quite literally installed. This use of the stage-object distinguishes it from sculpture, however, pointing rather to a convergence with the post-Minimal current that plays on the interdependence between bodies and the functional and spatial coordinates of a given venue.

Pushed to their limits, the striving bodies give rise to involuntary and residual shapes, and to respiration, sweating and physical marks that are laid bare to the public along with the movements carried out. The confined, homelike space of the conventional theatre, with its back/front organisation of the performance, is opened out and deconstructed. The X-shaped stage space takes on real volume, transforming into visual and physical continuity the technical and illusionist separation of the frontal division between the show and the spectators. The generic character of the X-Event 1 protocols in relation to the history of the dance, and of postmodern dance in particular, makes the work of the choreographers part of a return to the deconstructive strategies of the 70s; and of a transcendence of those strategies via an updated critique of the theatre industry, its standardisation and the role assigned to the spectator.

Pierre Bal Blanc, Director CAC Brétigny
Translation
Extract of the catalogue Biennale d’art contemporain Lyon 2007



X-Event 1 has been created in the théâtre l’Echangeur of Bagnolet, co-produced with the Festival Faits d’Hiver 2005, the Brétigny Contemporay Art Centre and the 5th Biennial of Contemporary arts in Berlin, in collaboration with the Nancy Ballet (Accueil Studio), with the support of ADAMI, and the participation of the National Centre of Dance, the Conservatoire of Bagnolet and Culturesfrance for touring abroad.

Sound: Nicolas Martz from the Baryton’s voice of Victor Torres

Diffusion (selection)
5th Biennial of contemporary arts in Berlin, Kunstwerke Institute, Germany, 2nd Mai 08; Festival Faits d’Hiver 2006, Maison de l’Architecture-Couvent des Récollets,Paris ; Festival Danse à Aix 2005, on the occasion of the 50th birthday of ADAMI

Photo credits: Sabrina Mathoux


X-Event 2

With X-Event 2, premiered simultaneously with X-Event 1 at the Brétigny Contemporary Art Centre in 2005, Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet apply their strategy at a different level by formulating an external critique of the standardisation of the performing arts. With its seven protocols, X-Event 1 is described by the choreographers as the matrix generating the seven performances brought together under the generic title of X-Event 2: Les courses, Les corps morts, Le goût, La vague, Les Kama Sutra, Les chutes and Salives.
 
Constructed as autonomous units and utilised as individual objects, these embodied forms can enter into a duality with other venues as part of a framework or an exhibition agenda, distinct from the ordered theatre space. Determined by an expenditure of energy taken to its limits, what the performers do confronts the specific characteristics of the site and its intended use. The spectator's body, too, is put to work and becomes an agent of movement. The time limit set for the performance is sometimes overrun by several hours or replaced by a calendar extending over several days, with the spectator totally free in terms of his perceptual rhythms and the movements involved. In brief, what the choreographers propose as an alternative to the strategy of deconstruction is that of reversibility, a tactic which, via the imposing of constraints and extreme limitations on contexts and performers, ineluctably gives rise to the reverse situation: the liberation of individualities and an acute awareness of place.

Pierre Bal Blanc, Director CAC Brétigny
Translation
Extract of the catalogue Biennale d’art contemporain Lyon 2007


Creation
X-Event 2.5/2.6/2.7 - Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Arts 2007
X-Event 2.3 -  Domaine départemental de Chamarande, July 07
X-Event 2.4 - Centre international d’art et du paysage de vassivière, June 07
X-Event 2.2 - Contemporary Art Centre -le Parc Saint Léger, Pougues les Eaux, March 2007
X-Event 2.1 - Contemporary Art Centre, Brétigny, February 2005

Sound: Nicolas Martz from the Baryton’s voice of Victor Torres

Diffusion (selection)
X-Event 2.1/2.4/2.5 FRAC Bourgogne/Festival Art-Danse Bourgogne 2008, Dijon, 2nd March
X-Event 2.2/2.3/2.5/2.6/2.7 On y danse tout en rond/Beursschouwburg, Brussels, 26th April 08
X-Event 2.3/2.5/2.6/2.7 La monnaie vivante/Tate Modern, London, 26th and 27th January 08
X-Event 2.2 Louvre Museum, Paris, 22nd February 08
X-Event 2.2 Contemporary Art Centre, Brétigny, 29th April 07
X-Event 2.1 FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, 25th March 07
X-Event 2.1 Festival ArtDanthé/Théâtre Le Vanves, Vanves,15th March 07
X-Event 2.1 VIème festival de performance de Cali, Colombia, April 06

Production: Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art, 2007, Micadanses Paris, with the backing of the Brétigny Centre for Contemporary Art, the Pougues-les-Eaux Centre for Contemporary Art, the Domaine Départemental de Chamarande, the Vassivière Centre for Contemporary Art, the Ile de France-Ministry of Culture and Communications Regional Cultural Affairs Office, the Essonne Département Council, the Adami, the ONDA, the CCN-Ballet Biarritz-Thierry Malandain-accueil studio 2007 and Culturesfrance for touring abroad.



X-Event 0

X event 0 disorients the spectacular object and creates an observation situation by positioning the presence of the viewer in the center of the representation process. By a deliberate act of retention, the convention of spectacular evening is maintained but the show is absent. This strategy of substitution points out the political and social dimensions of the formats and structures in live art. In a theater deprived of its essential, the emphasizing of the presence and the statute of the public reveals the roles of the individuals in the human economy, the motivations of their expectations as well as the concept of consumption in a cultural frame.

X-Event 0 pursues the reflections developed on the presence on the body in representation. This performance expresses and experiences an hindsight after the different observations made during the X-Event process, in the performing and live arts fields.
 
X Event 0 took place, on the occasion of the Festival Faits d’Hiver 2008, in the Micadanses Paris Studio, with the collaboration of 75 volunteer figurants. Following a precise timing and detailed indications, the participants have activated and influenced the process of the performance while being identified as the public.
 
Creation on the 24th January 2008, festival Fait d’Hiver 2008, studio micadanses, Paris